Audun and the Polar Bear (eBook)

Luck, Law, and Largesse in a Medieval Tale of Risky Business

William I. Miller (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2008
Brill (Verlag)
978-90-474-4344-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Audun's Story is the tale of an Icelandic farmhand who buys a polar bear in Greenland for no other reason than to give it to the Danish king, half a world away. It can justly be listed among the finest pieces of short fiction in world literature. Terse in the best saga style, it spins a story of complex competitive social action, revealing the cool wit and finely-calibrated reticence of its three main characters: Audun, Harald Hardradi, and King Svein. The tale should have much to engage legal and cultural historians, anthropologists, economists, philosophers, and students of literature. The story's treatment of gift-exchange is worthy of the fine anthropological and historical writing on gift-exchange; its treatment of face-to-face interaction a match for Erving Goffman.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 31.10.2008
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Mittelalter
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Recht / Steuern ► Rechtsgeschichte
• ISBN-10: 90-474-4344-6 / 9047443446
• ISBN-13: 978-90-474-4344-5 / 9789047443445